“I consider myself pretty lazy, but I look back and check out the stuff I’ve done, and I say, ‘God, that’s a lot of stuff for a lazy guy.’ It’s a paradox, I suppose, being both things.” Jeff Bridges

The other day, I was talking to someone about identifying how they would like their life to be, the things and people they would have in their life, what they would be doing and they said the feeling of being unworthy always got in the way. It was the second time they had mentioned this. I explained that this type of belief was not unusual. It was something I had observed in others and myself and had researched and thought about a lot. I knew that I needed to offer them more and I needed to write it down. Here it is.

We all have negative beliefs about ourselves, even those people who appear to be really confident. Mostly, these beliefs operate in our unconscious and we are unaware of how they affect our lives. It is more likely in a crisis, or when stressed or feeling really down, that these beliefs come up into our conscious awareness. At other times, though, they are still active, like software on your computer that is running in the background. They affect how we feel, our behaviour and the choices we make, and we don’t even realise it. It takes a degree of self-reflection, insight and awareness to recognise our particular negative beliefs.

For me, the dominant negative belief has been about “not being enough”, not good enough, not clever enough and on and on. In my reading and discussion with others, I have found this belief to be quite common. So is the belief about being unworthy. There are other negative beliefs such as being “wrong” or “bad”, “unimportant”, “not valuable” or “worthless”. To understand where our negative beliefs come from, we need to look at our personality type, our culture, our family history, as well as our life experiences and the meaning we have made of them.

A client once asked me why this is such a common human experience. I have read a number of theories but I leave it to wiser men and women than I to answer that. More immediately relevant is what it means for us, and how we work with it.

One of the most pivotal things I have come to understand is that life is full of paradoxes. It is never either/or – either someone is worthy or they are unworthy. It is always both/and. I have found that if I remind myself of that and discover how to fit the two pieces of a paradox together in my life, then letting go is easier and I feel freer. This ripples out into my life and the people around me.

I think there are actually two paradoxes at play here. Coming from a purely functional, practical, ego base, these beliefs can be both useful and create difficulty for us. Depending on how they play out in our lives, they can have both a push and a pull effect.

On the one hand, I know that the feeling (or rather the fear) that I don’t know enough has driven me to research more and has brought more rigour to my work and feeling that I’m not good enough has meant trying harder in all sorts of areas in my life. I know at times I can present as the opposite to that belief. For others, it can mean pushing to try to be better, more worthy or to give more value. All of this is useful except that, when done without awareness, this behaviour tends to be reactionary, driven, always about trying and often draining.

And on the other hand, having these beliefs can be the reason we just don’t quite get there, why we end up not doing things we know we should or could be doing. We can tell ourselves that we don’t deserve to have or achieve something because we are unworthy or bad or not good enough. So we are held back from fully expressing our capabilities. These beliefs can create an inner wound that is hard to see and even harder to heal. They can be the driver behind thinking or doing disappointing things. They can fuel an inner dialogue where we blame and feel anger towards ourselves or even others. We often keep it as a secret part of us because if others knew they might not like us, trust us or want to be with us.

There is another, more fundamental paradox. On the one hand, we are all essentially unworthy and never enough; we can all fall short (if not in action or word, then in thought, if not to others or the world around us, then to ourselves). We all can be reactionary, driven by our personality structure and defence mechanisms and this is part of being human.

On the other hand, there is a part of us that is inherently pure and good. Beneath the defence mechanisms and behaviour, beneath the personality and ego structure, there is a part of each of us that is not caught up in any of the judgements or opinions, the emotional reactions or endless thinking. By going deep within, you discover there is goodness and beauty in you. Everyone can connect with this but few do. You can’t think your way there. It is not about doing good things and there can be no pride in it because it is in each of us. It is the very essence of all things. This part of you is deeply worthy, infinitely enough, divinely valuable. It is your true self and it is the source of your deep and true connection to people and the world around you.

So what do these negative beliefs mean and what can we do about their impact?

Well the first thing I want to say is that it is a belief. It is not who you are and it is not the whole truth. There is a physiological, neurological basis to any belief which means (thanks to our understanding of neuroplasticity) it can be changed. The feeling or fear of not being enough or unworthy or wrong is an emotion caused by the belief and is also physiological in nature and therefore can be relieved. Anything is possible. We all have this capacity to evolve.

What does it mean? In fact, it means whatever you choose to have it mean. You can choose to believe your particular negative belief and so allow the belief to run freely and determine your life. That choice is a bit like being a rudderless dinghy going in whatever direction the wind and the tides send you. At times, with this belief driving in the background, you are always doing and trying. At other times, you hold back, self-sabotage and wonder why. You find yourself feeling uncomfortable within your carefully defended comfort zone. And it can lead you down some very dark paths.

Another meaning you can choose is that having a negative belief is an invitation to move forward and open to the possibilities of your true potential. It is an invitation to know and understand yourself better, to see how the push and pull of these beliefs play out in your life and to work with it. I’m not saying it is easy but the only way through is to recognise and take up this opportunity for real growth. This is your inner experience so this is about caring for you and the process is different for everyone; it is not “one size fits all”.

So this is an invitation to be fiercely honest with yourself, yet open to the possibilities, knowing that the human capability to feel and to be kind, to love and learn, to grow and create far exceeds our individual imagination.

I am reminded of an ancient Chinese saying:

“The pathway is smooth. Why do you throw rocks before you?”

A Letter to My Sister

Two months ago, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a shock to her and to us all. Our extended family has experienced more than our fair share of loss and difficulties in recent years. As she began her long journey of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and we talked almost daily, I knew that this was completely new territory for her and for all of us. When things became very difficult for her, I realised that if I was going to be of any help, I had to learn and understand and shift my thinking and my emotions.

This letter came from that. She is my greatest supporter and I publish it with her encouragement and her blessing, in the hope that it may be of some help to others.

To my dear Sister,

About the Hero’s Journey:

In everybody’s life there will be times when we are forced, by situations or events, to take a journey not of our choosing. It is a journey of healing.

Many things can trigger a healing journey and cancer is the one that is on my mind. Serious illness or injury, or devastating loss can also be the starting point. Challenging and difficult events in life, as you and I have discovered, always offer an opportunity for learning and growth.

You were better prepared than most when this journey came along. You already understood much about growing and learning from life’s curly events and situations. You have the blessing of a dynamic and loving relationship with a supportive and terrific husband, and you have caring children. You have a good sense of humour and you are strong and resilient.

Yet, I felt your struggle to hold onto positive thoughts in the face of the uncertainty, the discomfort and fatigue, and especially the severe pain that unfolded. As you pulled yourself back up each time, you showed me that sometimes the best you can do is just to survive.

While there is no doubt that there lies in this an opportunity to learn and grow, it is clear to me that it needs to be put into a proper context. Your experience cannot be understated or oversimplified. There is no getting it right, doing it perfectly or pushing to take the learning. I do not see this journey of yours as a tragedy because that would make you a victim and helpless, and you are definitely not that. At its very essence, your journey is more heroic, more like the stuff of a hero’s tale, with danger and difficulty as well as opportunity.

I think of the countless others who have been forced to travel a similar path and I wonder if they and those around them saw this in their journey.

When I shared with you this perspective on your experience, you got it and I felt the shift inside you. This is because the hero’s journey, whether undertaken by male or female, is an archetypical story and different versions of it have been told (and lived) down through the centuries. There are many elements in a hero’s journey that are relevant to a healing journey.

A hero’s journey is always scary, challenging and painful (mentally and emotionally as well as physically). And it can be lonely. It seems to me that you are this lone rider out in front and I am one of your support team following along behind. This journey is scary for us too. We can care for you but we aren’t doing the same journey as you. We can’t really know what it is like. However, markers left by earlier heroes are really helpful and I am interested to learn what markers you would leave for others.

This type of journey asks a lot of you. Even though you have always been a bit of a warrior, it is asking more of you than just the ability to be brave and to fight. There will be battles but there is more to a hero’s life and story than fighting. “Being brave” only allows us to avoid feeling and facing our fears and it can hide or distract us from discovering what really needs to be understood.

Life is always uncertain but when you are on a hero’s journey, the uncertainty can no longer be denied or hidden. It is right there in front of you. A hero’s journey asks you to draw deeply from within yourself, to feel your fear, your anger and your grief, and to find your courage.

Despite the difficulties, there is much to be gained on a hero’s journey. As the journey unfolds there are always discoveries along the way. The real treasure lies in self-discovery, who you are, what is important to you and what you are capable of. You also get to discover things about life and about other people. And there is another gain – your journey gives others the opportunity for their own growth and learning.

At some point in the journey, a hero may discover that they have been carrying too much. It is possible to lighten your load. Often under stress, everything comes up – all the past hurts and misunderstandings, responsibilities that really belong to others, resentment and the inner clutter of thinking and emotions. When you avoid expressing the emotions that come up and push them back down, you are still carrying them inside you. A hero will find the tools that allow them to put down, let go and leave behind what they no longer need to carry.

There is an important element of a hero’s story, which can be lost in the narrative. Somewhere along the journey, the hero has to learn to believe in and be true to him or herself. A point is reached where you have to start to value you and your life as highly as you value anyone else. A hero may love and trust others but at its essence, the hero’s journey is an inner journey. Genuine love and trust for self and life, is at the heart, quite literally, of a hero’s tale. The self-care and nurturing that flows from that, is at the core of a healing journey.

No matter what comes up along the way, a hero makes his or her own choices. This doesn’t mean you are on your own. It means you have to do what is right for you and don’t do what is not right for you.

This is what you’ve told me that you have discovered so far:

• Be attuned to your body. Listen to your body and act on what is right for you. The body is intelligent and you’ve found you can rely on your body to tell you what it needs.
• You found it is important to lovingly receive and gratefully accept what others offer you. Being able to fully receive from others is actually providing value to them.
• You discovered that to truly feel and authenticate your affirmations, your self-care and nurturing, you needed to engage your body in the process, using actions and movement as you speak. This is an important discovery because the body and the mind are one. Thinking and speaking are only one part of the human equation. Your inner experience is key to this journey and your thinking and your emotions happen inside your body.

Your sister in life and love,

Judy

“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”

– Joseph Campbell

The way he treats his body, you’d think he was renting. ~Robert Brault

When I wrote my last blog, I asked the question “Are you caring for yourself?” This is at the core of my work with the most valuable of our relationships, the relationship we have with our self. I wrote about two important aspects, one is “caring for” which includes your feelings and attitude towards yourself and the other is “taking care of” which is about your choices and actions.

I would like to delve a little deeper into our relationship with our body. Caring for our body is my focus this time.

The “caring for” I am referring to, is the desire to connect with and nurture. It is the capacity to have sensitivity to emotions and feelings, and includes acceptance, understanding, appreciation and communion. Some naturally express this in all of their relationships more than others do.

The “taking care of” is a different movement inside of us, involving more head than heart. It is about making choices, taking action, moving forward and strengthening. Without realising it, it is this capacity that many of us focus on. However, both need to be expressed in a healthy and balanced way for any relationship (including the one with our body) to be successful and sustainable.

While others may offer support, in the end, your body is your responsibility

It is like your child. You can take care of a child perfectly, giving shelter, food, clothing etc. However, without kindness, love and nurturing the child may survive but not truly thrive.

I have found that the relationship we have with our body is different for everyone, and is often complicated. Our body, our mind and our sense of self and spirit are not separate parts but rather exist as an interconnected whole. This means that when we start caring for our body, it inevitably engages and affects our thinking and emotions.

There is so much we could explore about this subject. However, for the moment, I am going to provide a few points for you to consider.

Like any relationship, you begin where you are right now by getting to know and understand your body fully.

In our culture, it is common to spend a lot of time in our heads either through work or habit. While we are in our head thinking, planning, analysing, imagining and worrying we are disconnected from what is going on in the rest of our body. When you are in your head, you are either stuck in the past or occupied with the future. However, when you fully inhabit the whole of your body, you discover it is the access point to the present moment.

The next step in the relationship is to bring honesty, acceptance, appreciation and good communication.

Honesty means shining a light on all of our beliefs, needs and choices regarding our body. Notice what you say to yourself. This is important because sometimes we find we are resentful, ashamed of, frustrated or disappointed with our body or aspects of our body. This comes from looking at our body from the outside in and viewing it as separate from our self.

Acceptance is as much about feeling as it is about thinking. Being able to say to your self and deeply believe – “this body is mine and it is always good enough”.

Appreciation of the work our body does every day and its incredible complexity and miraculous nature is not something we tend to do and yet appreciating improves every relationship. Our body has the natural capacity to grow, defend, repair, adapt and sustain itself (sustain us). However, if you want the best performance, you have to create the best environment, inside and outside your body.

Good communication helps with that. It is about being in tune with and listening to what our bodies can tell us. It is about giving and receiving love, kindness and respect as an inner experience. Our bodies do follow the law of cause and affect but if you want something from your body, whether it is to get fit, lose weight, increase muscle bulk, recover from an illness or repair after an injury, you have to enlist your body. Research shows that connecting with, listening to and caring for your body makes a difference. Do not be surprised if you have mixed success when you ignore what your body is telling you or your internal dialogue includes discouraging or disempowering thoughts.

What I find is that most people know this stuff. We have a sense of it already, but we need to be reminded. When we pay attention to and care for our bodies often enough, it becomes part of our operating system. This makes a difference to our choices and actions.

I now come back to the quote at the beginning. This is the point about your life. You have to do it through this body of yours. You have to live, experience your life and express your self through this body. This is your true home. This is where you live.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;    
there you have a solid place for your feet.  
Think about it carefully!   
Don’t go off somewhere else!     
…just throw away all thoughts of    
imaginary things,    
and stand firm in that which you are.  Kabir

“Nothing happens until something moves.” Albert Einstein

Taking care of yourself is the single most important thing you can do to improve your life, your relationships, other people’s lives and even the world around you. Caring for yourself is the “put the oxygen mask over your face first” principle and is key to taking care of others or anything else you feel responsible for. It is needed for sustainability and effectiveness.

We talk about caring for our children, our loved ones and our parents as they age. It is not only accepted, it is expected. This is not so much the case when we talk about caring for ourselves.

It is regarded as a positive thing to talk about taking care of our house, our business, our work, our finances but it is not part of our language or culture to talk about taking care of ourselves. We try to teach our children to take responsibility and to care for others but the most powerful thing is to show them by our example. However, we seldom show them how, as an adult, to truly care for themselves.

Now, I don’t want you to misunderstand my meaning. I am not talking about being narcissistic or focusing on looking out for number one. I am not talking about neglecting your responsibilities or stopping taking care of others. And I am certainly not meaning for you to be selfish or self-indulgent. In fact, any need to indulge or over-indulge yourself just seems to fall away as you learn to truly care for yourself.

What I am talking about is caring for ourselves as whole, complete and valuable human beings. When we take care of ourselves in this way, we are supporting and improving our health and wellbeing, and creating a healthy, joyful, successful and fulfilling environment inside us and in the world around us.

You will find that as you are kinder and more caring towards yourself and taking appropriate action, it ripples out. And the world around you is better for it.

Our health and wellbeing go hand in hand because our mind and our body come in this one package. Our wellbeing is created through our inner experiences; our mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual health. Our body and our physical health reflect the state of our wellbeing. Let me clarify all of this.

Caring for myself is about my relationship and my attitude towards myself. Taking care of myself is about the choices I make and the actions I take.

When I am caring for myself my thoughts and feelings towards myself include understanding, compassion, nurturing, gratitude, love, kindness and respect. Of course, like all healthy relationships it also includes giving and accepting tough love, truth, challenge and responsibility. What is your experience?

The thing is, it is difficult to take real care of something that you mostly take for granted, don’t have a great relationship with or don’t really like or care about. When we look deep inside, most of us find some negative or, at best, neutral feelings towards our body and our inner self.

There are many ways that we can take care of ourselves but the foundations have to be our first priority – eating and drinking, sleeping, personal hygiene, leisure and movement. These are fundamental to caring for our bodies and to our enjoyment of life. Mostly, they are part of our routine and not prioritised. Their value and importance to our health and our life is often underestimated.

Our attitude towards these things and how we go about doing them is as important as what we do.

Looking at it from this perspective, sleep is not just about going to bed to get sleep or napping during the day. It includes the attitude you bring towards your body and it’s need for sleep, how you prepare for sleep and the time you allocate for your body and your mind to repair, recover and rejuvenate through sleep.

Caring for yourself and taking care of yourself is a way of being, a way of living your life where you care for your body and all the parts of your inner experience that you call self. It is a path where you get to experience complete and utter delight, and the very best version of yourself.

The more I worked with this and shared it with others, the more I realised that it is a complex and often paradoxical concept for most of us. Clearly, there are many things to discover and understand about caring for and taking care of ourselves and I want to explore these over the coming weeks.

However, to return to the quote at the beginning – nothing is going to change, for any of us, until we (that means you and me) make a move.

So let me leave you with some practical things for you to explore.

1. Just start noticing how you talk to yourself, the language you use. What is your relationship like? Do you really like yourself? Do you like or really care about your body?
2. The Institute of HeartMath has some simple but very effective tools and techniques that can be used to work with feelings of love, care and compassion towards yourself. A useful beginning practice is Heart-focused Breathing and you can find it at The Quick Coherence Technique
3. If it is used consistently, Louise Hay’s Mirror Work can be very effective in improving   your relationship with yourself. Do yourself a favour and just try it. Learn more about  it here.
4. Remember, it is through our bodies that we experience life and that we express ourselves in the world.

“The human body is not something to transcend or abuse or abhor or ignore but rather the body is the anchor, the gateway, the ultimate gift……” Sera Beak

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” TS Eliot

A little while back, I wrote about speaking with “your true voice”. We know we are using our true voice when what we say reflects and expresses who we truly are and what really matters to us beyond our small-self needs, worries and dramas.

For most of us this does not come naturally. It is not something society or our education system really values or teaches us to do. It requires, at least initially, a specific intention to communicate in this way and needs us to bring our attention to what is going on inside us. However, I have come to recognise the value for me when I do this and I also deeply value the gift when others speak to me from the same place.

Thanks to some wise and intuitive friends, I realise that so far I have only written about one part of the whole, one part of the exchange that is communication and connection. When we speak, it is always in the context of relationships. In discussing the notion of speaking with your true voice, I had focused on our inner experience, understanding who we truly are and what really matters, and on bringing that to our relationships with others.

For those who wish to deepen their ability to relate, it is important to recognise that there are other parts to relating and communicating for which you can hold yourself accountable. Speaking with your true voice is one part of the exchange. Taking responsibility for congruence between your words, your feelings and what you do is another.

Listening with a “true ear” or deep and true listening is the other part of communication for which you are responsible. Deep listening is about more than just hearing the words. People communicate what matters to them in ways that go beyond what they say. Non-verbal communication and subtle information is always present in any exchange.

And we need to remember that we all automatically and unconsciously filter the incoming information, making our own generalisations and assumptions. It is easy to be distracted from deep listening.

If we fully open to listening and receiving, there is a lot more information available to us. It seems to me that by being awake and developing our capacity for truly receiving what is being communicated, we create an opportunity for genuine understanding and connection.

We cannot receive anything if our hands are full. If we come in to the house with our hands full of the grocery shopping, and someone greets us with a freshly poured cup of tea or coffee, we have to put down our groceries before we can receive the cup (the gift). Similarly, it is difficult for us to effectively, deeply receive what another is trying to communicate unless we first put down the baggage that we are carrying.

When I think of deep listening, I immediately think of the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize winner. I would like to share this excerpt from his writing.

“But if you are full of pain, full of anxiety, full of projections, and especially full of prejudices, full of ideas and notions, it may be very difficult for you to practice deep listening. You are too full. And that is why to practice in order for you to have space, to have freedom within, to have some joy within is very important for deep listening.”

And so I have come back to where I first started. And I discover an invitation for me to improve my relationship with myself, which is what speaking with my true and authentic voice is really all about.

So, to grow your abilities to relate, to improve any relationship and deepen your significant relationships, begins with deepening your inner experience. It begins with improving your relationship with yourself because that connection determines the quality and depth of all your connections, all your relationships. It determines what you bring to the world and what you receive from the world.

“You can’t see what you can’t see. We all have filters and assumptions that limit our capacity to perceive the whole truth.” John Gruber

John Gruber is a talented and deeply committed teacher. He made this comment in the context of exploring the idea of attention, of where we place our attention and how that impacts on our lives. The thing is, most of the time, we are not actively seeking to see the whole truth. Even if we are aware, in the moment, that we are filtering a particular situation, to see clearly is still difficult to do, especially in the matter of seconds in which we feel we have to react. So, when caught up in a situation or interaction, most of the time, it just doesn’t occur to us – until later. We tend to work on the assumption that what we perceive – see and experience – is the truth of what is going on “out there”.

The unique way our brains filter the world is created from a combination of tendencies we are born with and experiences throughout our lives, especially from our childhood. We continue to reinforce this filtering on a daily basis. So the challenge is not only to recognise in the moment (or even later) that we are doing this but also to open up our filters and let go of our assumptions. Waking up to this way of seeing the world takes lots of practice and, under stress it is particularly difficult to stay awake to our own filters and assumptions, and to see all the different perspectives.

Now, I’m pretty sure that most of you already have an understanding of this. However, a recent experience reinforced for me how easily this filtering mechanism can limit us in our life without us realising it (even in small ways), so I thought I would share it with you.

A trusted friend and colleague sent me an email in response to my last blog “What does your true voice sound like?” She surprised me when she finished off with “I’m not sure you’re finished with this train of thought? I feel something else coming from it.”

My immediate thought was “Oh? Really?” When I had finished the blog, I didn’t have any thoughts of following up or adding more on the subject. I have to say that, at times, I do see a future direction for my blogs and will write a follow up – but not this time.

I was intrigued and I trusted my friend’s judgement so I went back to read the blog again and drew a mind map with these central questions. What more can I offer? Where else could this lead?

I had identified six possibilities to explore when I became distracted by the realisation that maybe there was a learning for me in this. Without realising it, I had placed a limit on myself and my work. This limit was a result of my own filtering mechanisms and my level of awareness at the time. My attention was on analysing and bringing together the feedback, seeing how that fitted with my own thoughts and other research, then pulling it all together into something that was coherent and useful, and finally getting the blog posted.

Until my attention was drawn to it, I could not see these further possibilities. I had limited the opportunities that were available and consequently what I could offer. Over time, I have come to understand myself fairly well and I recognise that I have a personal orientation to “tick it off and move on” when it comes to getting things done. If I am not awake, I filter only for the outcome, the best result. Like all traits, there are positive aspects (I get things done), as well as negative ones (when caught in it, I am thinking more linearly, not so open to the possibilities and I’m limiting myself).

We all have a unique way of filtering our world and this impacts on our way of functioning in the world. It is important to wake up to and understand our own way of perceiving, acting and reacting.

There are lots of situations in everybody’s life. Some are more significant than others. As a simple example, at work, someone may perceive that their boss is not communicating well and this causes some angst for them. There is nearly always some truth in what you do see. However, because of the way that they are filtering, this is where their attention is focused and it means that they simply don’t see other factors – “you can’t see what you can’t see”. Until they wake up and do the work to see more clearly, they are limiting themselves and their capacity to improve this and other similar situations.

This experience has reminded me to be more awake and aware, and my writing is a good place to begin again. In what ways do you shut down possibilities and limit opportunities in your life – maybe without realising it at the time?

As a postscript to this, another trusted and wise friend sent me an email. We had been working back and forth on a particular challenge and she had sent an email to thank me but then she added – “It actually is an extension on your true voice, maybe a true ear (hearing things clearly) ……… Maybe follow up blogs for you?”

I knew straight away where I needed to go with it, and I’ll bring that to you next time.

Isn’t the Universe wonderful? I was being reminded again, that I also need others to help me see more clearly. How about you?

“Go inside yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows” Rainer Maria Rilke

My previous blog “Do you know your true voice?” was about finding and speaking with your authentic, true voice. I invited you to notice when you are speaking with your true voice and when you are not, and how that feels. I was keen to know your thoughts and experiences around this. Thank you to all the people who so generously shared with me.

I had felt it was important for me to understand this more fully, and the synchronicities I found along the way confirmed it! Bringing authenticity to relationships is not only a way of growing and improving them but also makes them stronger. And just as important for me, is the way I feel when I speak from a place that I know is true and authentic. I feel deeply congruent with myself, and I feel whole and complete. There is no internal stress or discomfort.

So, paradoxically, speaking up, expressing myself to the outside world, is in essence, an inside job. However, finding a way to articulate what is truly inside me, to speak from the heart – not just from the head or from emotions, to voice what is important can be a challenge – even for the most articulate amongst us.When I first started researching, I was surprised to realise that I actually wasn’t certain what my true, authentic voice sounded like. It was, in fact, easier to recognise what it was not. So it was with great interest that I considered your responses.

Some of you spoke about the fear of speaking up and had identified different reasons for this. There was the fear of how it would be received, the reactions it would trigger in the other person. There was the belief that others didn’t care about what you had to say, so you didn’t speak with your own true and authentic voice but with a voice that said the words you thought others wanted to hear. There was also the fear that it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Someone pointed to the fear that they would get it all wrong and felt unable to properly articulate what they wanted to say.

One person spoke very frankly about struggling with her relationship with her partner who wouldn’t/couldn’t speak about how he felt. Deeply frustrated, she continued to share what she thought were her true and authentic thoughts and feelings, and eventually he responded. What she heard was mostly criticism and she felt deeply hurt. It was only in stepping away and reflecting on it that she began to see that she had not been speaking from a place that was true and authentic, she had spoken from frustration and fear (and so had he) and also she had, in her own way, been critical of him. She realised that what she was saying felt true at the time but it was not what really mattered to her.

Others spoke about finding courage to finally speak up about situations that had been bothering them. I learnt about how, for one person, the build up of emotions and thoughts created a distorted energy to the words that came out. It left them feeling uncomfortable and as if it had somehow exploded or rushed from them. This made them even more reluctant to speak up in the future.

Someone shared with me how, being true to herself and cultivating the courage to speak up in a situation, allowed her to communicate what was real and right for her. None of her fears about the reaction she would experience were found to be true.

Finally, another person pointed to some laziness on her part. Often, she simply didn’t take the time to go deeper and find out what really mattered to her. So she just spoke “from the top of my head” because she felt an expectation and pressure to give an immediate response. On reflection, she had recognised she often felt uncomfortable after doing this.

Everything I read and heard was pointing me in a particular direction. It seems there are two aspects to speaking with a true and authentic voice. First, we have to be able to hear for ourselves that voice inside us that speaks with wisdom and understanding.

It is not the dialogue in our heads that will guide us to speak with our true and authentic voice.

It seems that speaking what really matters to me can only happen if I understand myself, centre myself and quiet my mind (thinking and emotions). Cultivating courage sits within this. I have developed practices that help me and I am learning how to be a wise and loving friend to myself. I have found that when it is important, it is useful to take my time to get clear. Whenever I forget or fail to do this, I feel the stress and discomfort of not being authentic and true, but if I listen, wisdom tells me that I am still, and always, learning (and learning is the opportunity found in discomfort).

Second, when we reconcile this voice with our particular personality and style, we can develop the habit of speaking with our own true, authentic and very unique voice but how we speak, and what we say also depends on the situation.

So, communicating what matters to you includes both the content and the energy/feeling behind what you say. Coherence between these two things is essential for authenticity in any relationship. When there is congruence between the words and the feelings and what we do, people are able to understand who we really are and what matters to us.

Life then adds an interesting twist! How others read or see us also depends on their own personal, often unconscious, biases (how they filter the world). We have no control over how someone will receive our communication.

So, when I speak with my true, authentic and unique voice, the greatest value lies in my own inner experience – the sense of self and of being whole as well as the opportunity of genuine connection with the world around me.

“But expression is more than just mouthing the words. It is the exchange of what matters between living things.” Mark Nepo

The other day, I was speaking to someone who had a few colds over winter that had developed into laryngitis. After she lost her voice again, she sheepishly admitted to me that she had decided to refer to her Louise Hay book “You Can Heal Your Life”. Looking up laryngitis she found under probable cause “So mad you can’t speak. Fear of speaking up. Resentment of authority.”

I asked her if this felt true to her. Her answer was ‘Oh, definitely. I can see how that is true for me, particularly at work.’ I remembered similar stories from people I have known, especially as a stress consultant. Not just people who found they were regularly losing their voices but others who felt reluctant to speak up or to express their feelings in certain situations.

I realised that this was an important component of something I had been thinking about and researching. Coincidence? Well, more an example of “what you focus on expands” but it certainly got my attention.

I had been researching the idea of finding your voice. More specifically about finding your authentic voice, the voice that truly reflects who you are, beyond the petty needs and worries of your small self/ego.

For the person I was speaking to, it was more about having a voice but the connection was clear and added a new dimension. After all, to have a voice, first you need to find it. On reflection, I remembered situations where I felt unable to speak up. So, I am interested in the reasons so many people find themselves in situations where they do not or cannot express what they are feeling or thinking. This is important to understand because it creates stress inside you.

However, finding your authentic voice is not just about being able to speak. There are plenty of people who have no trouble speaking out but I do not believe that they are always speaking with their true voice. There have been times for me, and I know for others, when what I have said or how I have said it does not reflect who I truly am or what really matters to me. What does this mean? Finding and speaking with your authentic voice is about connecting, about expressing who you truly are and what really matters to you.

Without that, you experience disappointment and discomfort as well as stress. In the end, speaking with a true voice, “exchanging what matters”, impacts on all of our relationships.

I intend to expand on this further but right now, I would like to invite you to notice when you are speaking with your true voice and when you are not, and how that feels. Please add a comment or email me with any thoughts you would like to share.

At the end of my last blog, I said that I would write about why women tend to be better at relationships than men. This seemed an appropriate thing to talk about because I am teaching a workshop on the 9^th August.

It is a workshop for women, called Free Yourself and Connect: A Whole of Life Approach to Improving Relationships. You can read more about it here.

I’ll be honest; at the time I worded it that way because I wanted to catch your attention and, perhaps, trigger some thought on it. I suspect, that many women, because of their own experience, might agree. However, trying to categorise human beings is always tricky, because each individual is unique. So, if you ask is this true; it is always a “maybe yes, maybe no”/”it depends” answer. This is why I used the word ‘tend’.

Relationships are at the very core of who we are and how we live our lives but many of you may have observed that men and women look at relationships and the world differently.

Let me give you an example. A group of young mothers with their babies and toddlers meet for an exercise class in the park opposite our house once a week. They get into a circle and there is a lot of discussion and chatting as they go through some gentle movement and stretches. My son was visiting me on a day when they were in the park and he observed them as we sat on the veranda drinking our coffee. Finally, unimpressed with the intensity of their exercising, he asked, “What are they doing?”

This difference is best understood by looking through the lens of the feminine and masculine traits or types rather than comparing males and females. Feminine and masculine traits exist in both men and women but present differently in each individual. There are many factors that contribute to this, much like the different personality types in the Enneagram. The unique presentation of the masculine and feminine within any personality type contributes to each person’s individuality.

It is important to understand that both masculine and feminine traits have value depending on what is needed at the time. It is a difference in orientation in the way in which we relate to ourselves, with each other and with the world around us.

As a general overview, Masculine traits or type are more oriented towards doing and having control over the external world. So this includes:

• A results/goal and solution orientation with emphasis on doing rather than being and feeling
• Autonomy – a desire to act without interference
• Independence – attempting to act free from influence

Whereas, relating, connecting with and nurturing others is the defining drive of the Feminine type and includes:

• Strength through sharing and exchanging important thoughts, feelings and experiences
• Interdependence – self-worth, influence and power, in many ways, is seen as coming from connection to others
• Fullness and completeness is found in relationships, connection, emotional expression and feeling.

So my reply to my son was, “They are connecting. They are just choosing to be outside and move rather than to sit down inside while they are connecting.”

Although men tend to more easily access the masculine traits and women the feminine, we all can access both. There is a continuum of expression from the masculine to the feminine type in each of us. If not balanced and moderated, both types can tend towards unhealthy presentations and unhealthy relationships at either end of the spectrum.

For example, the masculine trait of results/goal orientation, if not balanced, can lead to the goal being the only thing that can be seen and being prepared to do anything to achieve that result including control and aggression. One outcome is that people can be hurt as their needs and desires are ignored or trampled on, another is war. The feminine trait of strength through relating and connecting becomes unhealthy when it leads to a fear of being alone and being unable to function outside of a relationship. One outcome is people who, despite a number of failed relationships, rush into the next one. Their fear makes them unable to stand back and take the time to understand what it is that keeps recreating this experience.

Try this: consider the masculine and feminine traits and get a sense of which traits you value and which you rely on and use in your own life.

When I first studied these different traits, I was surprised to realise that, for most of my life I had tended to rely on and value the masculine traits within myself, or more accurately, the masculine power system. This was a reflection of my personality and upbringing and Western culture including the feminist “I am woman hear me roar” movement of my youth. Although the feminine traits within me drove my mothering and my relationships, I did not value these in the same way. In fact, I did not understand their real value or power when developed in a healthy and balanced way.

To a large degree, most of the world functions within a masculine power system. The feminine traits have not been truly valued– not seen as equally important to develop as the drive for success, achievement and financial growth. There is much to be learnt and understood about the power and value of the feminine traits. Balance is needed.

The fact is that women do have an innate drive to relate and connect. I believe that it is important not only for ourselves but also for the future of our children that we discover ways of relating and connecting more skilfully, taking a Whole of Life perspective, in order to create a healthy and balanced way of functioning in our world.

We do have the capacity to make a difference directly and through a ripple effect:

• With our families and in our homes
• In our workplace
• In our community and with our friends
• In the world around us
• To our children and our loved ones
• To ourselves.

 “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” Mother Teresa

If anything has come up for you that you would like to share, leave a comment or send me a message.

Do you ever get to a point where you feel like you need more balance or more flow in your life? Most of us do, but the trick is to figure out what it is that is triggering that feeling. Without getting clear on that first, we can often end up doing things that are unsustainable or don’t actually make a difference. One of the reasons this happens is that we interpret the feeling as stress. My study and work as a stress consultant lead me to take a different perspective on understanding how to create balance and wholeness in our lives.

This is my story.

I learnt many things through my study and work as a stress consultant, including that relationships are a common cause of stress. Now, this is not exactly ground breaking information, but what was really interesting to me is how poorly equipped most of us are to skilfully navigate our way through difficult relationships or the difficulty of relationships.

As one of 4 siblings and a mother of 4 adult sons, the reality is, that even in a family (or maybe especially in a family!) there is always one relationship or another that could do with improving or enriching! Of course, this applies to any area of our lives. For over 20 years, I worked as a dietitian and nutritionist in both public and private hospitals and after I did my MBA, I worked as a CEO. I can honestly say that I experienced just about every type of work relationship in that time.

So, it’s not just in our families that we experience relationships (or situations around relationships) that can challenge or frustrate us, trigger stress or make us feel powerless, less valued or simply stuck.

For some, it leads to a deep-seated feeling of wanting to be free – but at the same time, not wanting to lose your connection to the people that matter to you.

For others, it leads to a desire for life to flow more easily. It is a desire for you to be in the flow, not working against or in spite of but flowing with the relationships or situation.

When you start looking for help, for more understanding, for tools and answers, you discover that there is an awful lot of information, books, websites, therapies and new age ideas out there. You need to be able to filter it all, find what is valid and valuable, discover how to apply it from a practical perspective and you need to dedicate the time to do the research. I used science and medicine as my filter and extended my study to Eastern wisdom traditions and healing as well as established modern theories and understandings, such as Integral Theory and the Enneagram.

As I worked with people, observing the effectiveness of the medical model, different therapies and theories, I came to an important conclusion. There is no one treatment, no one therapy or idea or concept or theory that by itself can take a person all the way to health and wholeness, to freedom and flow, to happiness and fulfilment. You need a science-based, integrative and balanced approach.

I set about bringing together the different areas of my research and my work. And I used the stresses and challenges in my life to learn, trial and grow my understanding. There was a time when we were hit by one tragedy or difficulty after the other. My research, my work and my learning and growth stood me in good stead not only to navigate my way through and support others but also to further grow my understanding.

I found I was slowly evolving and feeling a sense of freedom and flow. Those around me were experiencing the benefits ofmy increasing ability to access connectedness and inner wisdom, and to act more skilfully.

I was also beginning to see how to bring all of this together as a whole of life approach. Now, I want to share with you a part of what I teach.

The relationships that make up the Whole of your Life

The quality of our relationships determines everything – how you feel, what you are able to do, what you achieve and the ease, connection and happiness you have in your life. When I talk about improving relationships, everyone starts thinking about the relationships they have with people. However, these aren’t the only types of relationships that affect our lives. For example, we all have a some sort of relationship with food, which, like all other relationships, changes over time.

So, for your relationships to improve and enrich, you need to start thinking more broadly. We have distinctive perspectives or ways of looking at, relating with and experiencing the world. They are the parts that make up the whole of our life. Our relationships with the people and things that arise in those perspectives are interrelated and create a whole. Everything is connected, nothing happens in isolation.

Firstly, there is our relationship with other people in our lives. These include the relationship we have with those who are close and important as well as those who come and go in an ever-widening circle of contact and connection. These relationships give us a direct experience of community, connection and sharing. This is a fundamental need for everyone. You can make an enormous difference to someone’s day just by connecting with them. And yet we often don’t put our attention or energy into actively connecting with others.

Second, there is our relationship with the world around us. These relationships are important in many ways, especially to our health and wellbeing as well as our level of stress. They include our relationship with our environment (house/home, work, suburb), the natural world (trees, garden, pets, river, sea, forests), the systems in our society (health, banking, education, government) and our communication systems (internet, twitter, phone). Connection and connecting is key here as well.

Finally, the most fundamental of all our relationships is our relationship with ourselves. It is our primary relationship, the only one we are certain to have all of our lives. It is the only one we have total responsibility for. Only you have true access to your inner experience. Your relationship with yourself is complex and has a direct impact on all other relationships. It deserves your attention, time and energy and includes taking care of your inner experience, your body, mind, health, creativity and much more. The path to freeing yourself and deepening connections begins with improving and enriching this relationship. It is your path to choose and does not rely on other people doing things differently or circumstances changing before you can feel free.

Try this: Our attention tends to be on one area of these relationships more than the others. To make our life whole and to create balance, we need to enhance and improve the relationships in all areas. On a day-to-day basis, where does your attention, time and energy tend to go?

Before I sign off, there is something I’d like to leave you with.

Life is definitely a journey. I’ve learnt that there is no point in asking “am I there yet?” and being disappointed when something happens and I realise I am not. Life is like that. There will always be challenging situations and people. There will always be relationships that suddenly seem to “go wrong”. Anything and anyone in your life can trigger hurt, stress or frustration. But, if you know how, everythingin your life can be a source of learning and support. There is always more to learn. This is because there is always more in you and of you, than you could even begin to imagine when you first start out.

The other day I was talking to someone who has been living from the perspective of a Whole of Life Approach for a while now. I was telling her a story of a recent experience I had and said, “It was a good learning opportunity”. She interrupted, saying “ Oh yes, that’s what I used to call a problem or difficulty; then I learnt to call it a challenge and now I only have ‘learning opportunities’. I’m not saying things don’t hurt but no matter how uncomfortable it is, I just don’t worry so much, I know how to work my way through. And, you know, its still magical to me how – it just works.”

As you go along, you learn to navigate through the challenging times more skilfully.

If you have any comments or questions, please send me a message or make a comment here on my blog post.

Next time, I am going to talk about why women tend to be better at relationships than men. I’ll also announce the date and venue for my next workshop and a special offer for those who are interested in attending with a friend.